Metaphors Connected with the Sense of Sight in Geoffrey Chaucers the Canterbury Tales

The paper analyses figurative applications of phrases containing words connected with human seeing (e.g. the verbs see, look, espy, nouns like sight, look, eye and adjectives such as blynd). It shows the motivation for metaphoric expressions used by Chaucer to express his thoughts and visions in a most vivid and precise way and their further development in the language system. The analysis is based on the data obtained from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (Ellesmere MS), the Oxford English Dictionary online and the Middle English Dictionary. As regards its theoretical basis it refers to Lakoff–Johnson’s theory of cognitive metaphor.